On the road with Ed Husic

Australia's first Muslim federal MP is on the front foot in his first bid to be re-elected in a culturally diverse electorate.

Retro Muhammad Ali posters are plastered around the boxing ring upstairs at the Blacktown PCYC. Medicine balls are stacked in racks and gloves are piled in baskets.

Labor MP Ed Husic, dressed in a sharp dark suit, is joking around with a punching bag as an ABC TV crew wires him up for a cross to Canberra with presenter Lyndal Curtis. ''I'm giving you comedy gold, Curtis, geez!'' he laughs.

Campaign: Ed Husic prepares for a television cross at Blacktown.Credit:Mick Tsikas

But when the camera goes live, the member for Chifley is instantly serious. ''The environment on the ground has shifted markedly,'' Husic says, telling the national TV audience that with Kevin Rudd as leader, Labor is competitive again. ''People are listening, but we've got a long way to go.''

Husic is rocking on his feet on the sweaty rubber gym mat as the interview dances from the impact of the dollar to Labor's new star recruit, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie. Sounds of table tennis echo down the hallway but Husic is focused on his political attack. Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberals' telecommunications spokesman, is his new punching bag. ''Turnbull has tried to create any diversion possible so people didn't take a hard look at what's on offer with the NBN.''

It is Friday, week one of the 2013 election campaign. Husic entered Parliament in 2010 and is fighting for his first re-election. Newly minted as the parliamentary secretary for broadband in Kevin Rudd's revamped cabinet, the energised 43-year-old's week started in Tasmania at a technology conference, stopped over in Canberra, but now he is back on home turf in western Sydney.

After a dark, cold 6.30am start at Mount Druitt railway station talking to commuters, Husic has arrived at the boxing gym at 10.30am for a $12.5 million announcement on local crime prevention programs, with neighbouring Labor MP Michelle Rowland. Blacktown straddles the two electorates. While Rowland's Greenway is held by the tiniest of margins, 0.09 per cent, Husic's margin is safer on 12.3 per cent.

He chats afterwards with the local police area commander Mark Wright, who is behind an innovative program to solve a perceived ''gang problem'' at the local shopping centre. Groups of teenage African migrant boys had been hanging around causing havoc. They instead now compete in a weekly singing quest at the centre, loving the performance. Retailers recognised they are simply groups of friends and offered them jobs. Husic thanks Wright for his leadership.

Back in his Mount Druitt electorate office every available flat surface is occupied by a busy staff member tapping away on a laptop or smartphone. Husic's Canberra staff have decamped to the two-storey shopfront squeezed between an African dreadlock and braiding salon and a pay day lender.

A speech is being prepared for Husic to give to a large Eid celebration at a Melbourne mosque on Sunday, alongside Foreign Minister Bob Carr. Husic, as the first Muslim federal MP, is escorting Carr to a series of celebrations, including one at his Mount Druitt mosque earlier on Friday morning.

He ducks out for lunch at a Lebanese charcoal chicken place, which encouragingly has a jobs vacant sign on the door and tables full of customers. Owner Simon Munzer knows Husic as a regular and gratefully accepts letters Husic has written on his behalf, seeking a change to parking restrictions in a bid to bring in more customers, and increased seating in the small park fronting the takeaway restaurant.

Husic says lifting the sense of security in neighbourhoods like this - opposite the station - is important for jobs, because if small businesses have to spend money continually repairing broken windows they will leave. The electorate will get two mobile CCTV systems that can be moved between graffiti and vandalism hot spots under funding announced in the gym.

Prospects in the area will get a huge boost, he hopes, when a new business park creates 15,000 jobs and maybe breaks intergenerational poverty in a nearby housing estate. Costco, Bunnings and Ikea have already signed. Land clearing has begun.

Knocking on the doors of 7500 homes, Husic says he became convinced Labor voters had stopped listening because of dislike of Julia Gillard as leader. ''I'm a Labor voter, but …'' Since the party has reverted to Rudd, he says the conversation has turned to issues, and boat arrivals is the top one. Refugees, particularly Bhutanese who spent long periods in United Nations camps, are upset their applications for reunion visas for family are being refused. ''They take it personally, as a slight on their integrity, they think they are being told that they are shonks and that is why they are being knocked back,'' Husic says.

Husic, who grew up and went to university in the area, believes his campaign is different this time because he has a track record in Parliament to point to. ''I wasn't sitting on my hands in Canberra and just being a number.''

He dons a polar fleece to walk to a rally at the local swimming pool at 4pm. The Liberal council has decided to shut it down. Mothers of local swimming champions gather to express their outrage.

Husic tells the crowd of fluoro-vested workers he cannot fathom the decision when a third of the electorate is aged under 19. ''In an area where we are fighting to get more facilities, not less, they come in and do that.''

He points to the $8 million community centre and library, The Hub, a two-storey glass-fronted building, half-funded by the Gillard government. ''We put in The Hub and council take away the pool. Within 100 metres of each other. It tells you everything,'' he says.

A constant stream of children carrying fishing rods walk past - the pool is stocked with carp in winter to allow fishing, which has been a hit.

As the sun sets on the pool protest, Husic's day on the campaign trail is far from over. He has a Pakistani function for dinner, then an ALP meeting at Rooty Hill. Before then, he will duck home to see his one-year-old son, Sam, before he goes to bed. Campaigning with a young family is difficult, he admits. But his family know it is just four more weeks until September 7.